Website of the Week — SnagFilms

Time
again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative
online destinations. Our web guide is VOA's Art Chimes.

Smash
hit movies from Hollywood, Bollywood and everyplace in between tend to crowd
out smaller films and especially documentaries from your local cinema.

Now
there's a new website that wants to help build an audience for these fact-based
movies via the Internet.

"We
are in the business of providing award-winning documentary films free to
audiences worldwide, via the web, says Rick Allen, who heads SnagFilms.com, a brand new site where you
can watch full-length documentaries online.

SnagFilms
features a range of high quality films, not only from top producers like
National Geographic and the major American public broadcasting network, PBS,
but also from smaller, independent filmmakers.

"Some
of them known well to indy film fans and documentarians, and they've made one
or more films that are often issues-based, and so deeply of personal importance
to them, and therefore we think lending themselves well to the viral
distribution that SnagFilms provides."

If
you're a filmmaker, you can submit your festival-quality documentary to
SnagFilms. For now, most of the films on the site are from the U.S., but Allen
says he hopes to expand with more international offerings.

One
thing that sets SnagFilms apart is that viewers are encouraged to share the
movies by posting them on their own website.

"Snag
is the ability to take our films and open up your own virtual movie theater on
any webpage, on your social network page – Facebook, MySpace – on your blog, so
that your visitors, your friends can share the films that are important to you
in the environment they're already congregating in."

You
don't need to be a computer programmer to do this. It's as easy as
copy-and-paste, or, for many popular sites, as easy as clicking on a widget.

One
more feature; you can show your support for the filmmakers by supporting their
favorite charities around the world.

A
documentary film festival on your computer at SnagFilms.com, or get the link to
this and more than 200 other
Websites of the Week from our site,
voanews.com.